"Ladder 49" tells the story of Jack Morrison (Joaquin Phoenix), a
firefighter with the Baltimore, Maryland Fire Department. The movie
covers over 10 years of Jack's life and service to the FD. The scope of
the movie feels a lot like the pacing and emotional intensity of films
back in the ‘40s and ‘50s. The storytelling is grand and eloquent,
sweeping and broad, yet the pacing suits today's audiences to a T by
moving through the story in quick snapshots of action and emotional
payoff.

The film starts with a gigantic structural fire in Chapter 1. Several
stories tall, the building towers above the city in the night. Hose
crews bombard the building with steady streams of water. Flames
resemble a diabolical monster fighting to get free of the concrete cage
that imprisons it. News helicopters circle the building and the
throbbing crescendo of the rotor wash pours through surround sound
systems, cutting from left to right and right to left to mimic the
helicopter movements. Sirens cut through the noise, adding to the
overall sense of urgency. The call quickly goes out, revealing that
people are trapped on the twelfth floor and above, and that the
building may explode.

The search and rescue squad, led by Jack, plunge into the building and
ascend the steps into the abysmal, smoke-filled hell. The crackle and
snap of flames close in on the viewer, lending authenticity to the
scene. The disc audio mix is specifically geared for the home theater
entertainment systems, and this is just one of the scenes that really
pay off on that score. Only seconds later, Jack finds a survivor. One
of the eerie sound effects used again and again throughout the film is
the hoarse rasping of firemen breathing through their helmet masks and
trying to stay in radio contact with command and each other. The audio
brings this out superbly. Even as Jack tries to get his survivor out,
more of the building falls. From outside, viewers are treated to a
spectacular view of an explosion that blows flaming debris out over the
streets, the emergency vehicles and personnel. Jack manages to lower
the survivor to the ladder crew. Before he can make his own escape,
though, the floor below Jack gives way and he plunges down, lost to the
viewer.

Chapter 2 opens up with Irish music that is a theme for the menu screen
as well as being predominant all through the film. The music haunts the
viewer, sounding vulnerable and eternal at the same time. Jack
approaches the firehouse on his first day of reporting for duty.
Members of the shift usher him into the captain's quarters. Jack is
already somewhat nervous because he's arrived late. Then he gets a look
at Captain Mike Kennedy (John Travolta), who tells him that they run a
tight firehouse while at the same time offering him a drink and seeming
to be either sleeping off a bad hangover or still inebriated. Kennedy
tells him they roll on over 4,000 calls a year. One of the firemen
escorts him from the captain's office to the priest to give confession.
But this is just one of the pranks they perform for newbies and Jack
quickly catches on. In a flurry of well-done scenes, Jack settles into
the rhythm and routine of the firehouse. Pranks are part of the overall
atmosphere.

Jack goes on his first fire call in Chapter 3. The firehouse gears up
as the warning klaxon kicks through the surround sound system, quickly
followed by the fire engine's horn as it speeds through the streets.
The horn blasts wake up the subwoofer all over again. They arrive at
the scene and Jack runs hose out to battle his first house fire. The
rookie mistake of forgetting his fire helmet takes just a split second
of screen time, but is a touchstone for every fireman in the audience
who has either done the same thing or saw someone else do it on their
first call. Jack overreacts and gets tangled up for a minute. His
breath rasps through the mask, but the rat squeaks that rip through the
surround sound system from all directions puts an end to that. Flames
crackle all around Jack and, thanks to the surround sound system, they
crackle all around the viewer as well. When Jack beats the blaze down
with the water stream at Kennedy's urging, elation fills him and flows
on into the viewer.

Chapter 4 cuts back to Jack's predicament in the present. He's trapped
in the burning building, so beat up from the fall that he can scarcely
move. Again, the omnipresent crackle of flames fills the surround sound
system and reminds the watcher that a predatory beast is on the loose
and just waiting for the chance to feast again. Commander Kennedy
arrives and tries to contact Jack, wanting to make sure he's still
alive and let him know they're trying to get to him. Then the chapter
pulls back to the past again, to a scene in a grocery story where Jack
and Dennis meet two young women. One of them is Linda (Jacinda
Barrett), who is going to become Jack's wife. The scene is nicely
underplayed and the meeting seems like something that would truly
happen between two people.

The pranks continue in Chapter 5. Jack arrives at the firehouse and
discovers his fellow firefighters have shoved a goose in his locker. He
gets a phone call from Linda, and the Irish music again echoes softly
as an undercurrent in the scene. The others ride him over the phone
calls, but they quickly take to Linda when they all meet at the Irish
pub Looney's for drinks once the shift is over. Again, the Irish music
becomes a solid presence in the action.

Chapter 6 cuts back to the present, with Jack still in trouble as the
search and rescue guys go in. Internal structures collapse and fill the
subwoofer with tremendous crashes. Debris ricochets and echoes from the
surround sound system constantly. Impacts out in the street resonate
with grim authority. The computer graphics of the fire are intense,
exhaustive and overwhelming, and we become convinced that no one is
going to make it out of the building alive.

Even as Jack's situation seems to worsen, the storyline plunges into
the past again. The scene where Jack and Linda get married with the
firefighters in attendance brings an island of safety and security that
defies what Jack is experiencing in the present. Time passes swiftly in
a montage of scenes showing the arrival of a new rookie and the
familiar games the viewer watched Jack go through. The band scene where
the firehouse marches hammers the subwoofer. Only a short time later,
Jack discovers Linda is going to have a baby.

Chapter 7 starts with a house fire. The team quickly rolls on the call,
never knowing it will have life-changing consequences. They are playing
pool before the call came in, just taking down time and being regular
guys. Dennis, Jack's close buddy, falls through the roof when the fire
weakens the supports and he dies. Other firemen have to drag Jack back
from throwing himself in after Dennis. The fire crackles, a voracious
force that will not be denied. Later, the shift deals with fallout from
Dennis' death. The funeral is very touching, quiet against the raucous
din of how a firefighter spends his time at his job. Linda suddenly
realizes that it could happen to Jack and things between them get very
tense. In a family scene that shows something of what Jack's life is
like when he isn't at the firehouse or responding to a call, Jack is
busy putting a baby bed together and discussing with Linda the fact
that he's taking Dennis' place on the search and rescue team. In the
next scene, Jack talks to Kennedy and sees the captain’s legacy in
mementos. We are shown that firefighting is often a family tradition,
passing from grandfather to father to son. Later in the chapter, Jack
rescues a man trapped out on a building ledge high above the street.
Linda and Jack have an argument over the risks he's taking because he
says the day was no big deal and she saw him on the news, dangling from
the rope while attempting to crash through a window to safety.

Jack and Linda's first baby is born in Chapter 8. The scene passes
without dialogue and moves directly into our hearts through sheer
emotions and images. Back in the present day, Jack hangs on
desperately. Water runs down all around him, bringing home the fact
that a fireman has two dangers while trapped: fire and water both
create a treacherous environment. The rush of water cascades through
the surround sound system all around us. Falling debris nearly lands on
Jack. He talks to Kennedy and says the whole building is about to come
down. Kennedy tells him to just hang on, that help is on the way. Then
he tells him about the control room behind a nearby wall that will buy
him some time if he can make his way through it. The roar of saw blades
rips through the surround sound system as the search and rescue guys
attempt to gnaw their way through the tangles of rebar and fallen
concrete slabs. With all the digital audio, we get a real sense of the
cavernous doom hanging over Jack as debris continues falling. Despite
his injuries, he starts tearing the wall down, refusing to give up just
as he has refused to do so throughout his career. When the chapter
moves back into the past this time, the scene shows Jack's little
girl's birthday. In short scenes, we get the sense of how Jack is
struggling to deal with the strain of his job and the commitments he
has at home. Firemen constantly walk that thin high wire between those
two demands.

Chapter 9 starts with another flashback, as shortly after four in the
morning, the crew gets called to a fire. Inside the factory, the wheeze
and hiss of industrial machinery circles left to right, right to left,
and all around. Jack and Kennedy are inside the factory, looking for
Tommy and realizing how dangerous the situation is. Steam ruptures with
a huge gush and scalds Tommy with a rush of noise that blasts through
the surround sound system. Jack’s hands are burned and he is reminded
again how dangerous his job is. Jack visits Tommy in the hospital burn
unit and we see the real downside of being that brave and facing those
kinds of dangers. Inside the burn unit, Tommy tells Jack that the
doctors put dead man's skin on him.

Still in the past in Chapter 10, Jack's emotional baggage overloads and
he gets into a fight with colleague Lenny (Robert Patrick), who manages
to keep himself emotionally distant from all the bad things that have
happened. Jack sees Lenny with a woman that he knows is not his wife
and it sets Jack off. They fight in the bar. Outside, Jack has a heart
to heart talk with Captain Kennedy. The captain tells Jack it's time to
ask himself if it's time to get out of the firehouse, if his own fear
and worry have gotten to be too much for him to bear. Jack deals with
his own fears. Later, the city is snowed in and they still roll on a
fire call. Total panic sets in as Jack searches for young girl that is
supposed to still be in the building. Even as he finds her, the fire
grabs a second wind and spreads in a wild explosion. Together, Lenny
and Jack save her, paving the way for the gut-wrenching film finale.

The special features part of the package offer a lot in the way of
extras. "Everyday Heroes: Real Stories From Real Firefighters" is a
nice addition to the movie, showing the guys who really do the job, as
well as time they spend with their families. The movies can't help but
glamorize and dramatize what these guys do on a daily basis because of
story structure, but it's nice to see that they truly are so down to
earth despite the requirements and hazards of those jobs. "The Making
of Ladder 49" provides additional insight to what the actors had to
learn and the lives they came to understand to a degree while making
the film. Likewise, the audio commentary offered by director Jay
Russell and editor Bud Smith gives additional insight into the choices
that were made for the film. Strangely, the deleted scenes don't really
offer anything to the movie and it is easy to see why they were cut.
They really detract from the overall emotional impact of the film in
its finished form.

"Ladder 49" is a story about heroes. With the PG-13 rating, it's
family-friendly, though perhaps not for very young viewers due to the
emotional intensity of the scenes. The movie is a definite keeper, one
that will entertain and affect audiences, moving them through a gamut
of emotions before leaving them exhausted. Travolta delivers a solid
performance without stealing scenes. In fact, no one in the film goes
over the top. Patrick does some of his best work ever in the film,
portraying Lenny as a real person we can like as well as dislike. As a
purchase or as a rental, people looking for a good, solid piece of
drama are going to be immensely satisfied with "Ladder 49."